The Real Reasons Why Industries Are Adopting AI Tools to Solve Inefficiencies

When industries such as HR adopt an AI tools platform, it allows recruiters and the hiring teams to sidestep monotony and focus their talents and efforts on what they are truly good at: engaging and cultivating relationships

Time-saving convenience. It's the reason we all love having technology in our lives. Whether it’s ordering a gift to be delivered the next day because of procrastination or using an app to shut off any lights in the house, we might have missed. Could you imagine your day without it?

Similarly, when it comes to work, AI is there to do the task you don’t have time for or just don’t want to do. So, AI becomes extremely useful for businesses who are looking to turn inefficiencies into efficiencies, save workers time, or improve ROI. AI might sound too good to be true, but it’s not. AI gives you time back to do the work that matters most by:

• Doing tiresome and tedious work
• Providing faster response times
• Increasing the ability to meet goals
• Allowing for real-time personalization

So let’s talk about these many repetitive tasks in our jobs that we (not surprisingly) dislike doing every day. These tasks simply take up too much of our time, and we wish there was a “better way” of doing something. How does AI solve the inefficiencies we face during work hours? Let’s talk about recruiters, for example. Recruiters set out in search of the best talent.

They have to balance having a great personal relationship with candidates and fulfilling the needs of their business partner, the hiring manager. During this balancing act, they also have to screen every candidate, review hundreds of resumes, schedule and reschedule interviews, call and email all day, and answer any questions that might come up while on (and off) the clock.

Enter AI. A platform like Humanly that offers recruiters solutions to automate all of these tasks listed above truly saves time.

If we simply look at the candidate screening stage, here is the breakdown of related activities

• Reviewing applicants (resumes, external sources)
• Pre-screening
• Hiring manager phone screen
• And the follow-up process of reference checks

The sources I found calculate the tasks historically at around 30+ hours spent across the board.

Most sources suggest an average of about 150 resumes received per position. Based on my primary research, I feel in high applicant volume hiring scenarios, that # doubles (if not more than doubles). About half the time here is spent on "reviewing candidates," which includes resumes and online sources, and most of the remainder is on pre-screen and phone screen, with reference checks being least here (though I imagine there is a lot of back and forth there too).

Not only was the time saved, but the candidates were happy with the experience because of the quick response and personalization.

An AI recruiting tool like Humanly.io responded to thousands of conversations within minutes and resulted in an average of 4.8 out of a 5-star rating by candidates.

We’d all be a little happier, too, if the first step to getting a new job was as easy as answering a few questions via chat and landing a job interview in just a few minutes.

So, you’re probably thinking, “Great, AI saves me time, but money talks.” Competing budget priorities are a hard barrier to get past, and you’re not wrong to think that the cost of implementing AI could come with a higher price tag than you’re willing to pay. This is where you have to take a bit of a shift in mindset. Think of conversational AI like Humanly as your digital worker.

A digital worker these days is almost necessary because as hard as we may try, we can’t be “ON” 24/7, 7 days a week. Even when we are in tip-top shape for working days, we also can’t do it all. Being able to respond quickly and have hyper-personalized touches means we need AI to do that work around the clock. Thanks to AI, automating screening, engagement, and reference check routines will increase productivity on your end.

Productivity = cost savings as this digital worker doesn’t need paid time off, onboarding or training, and can work all day, every day, without stopping for a lunch break. In those regards alone, your digital worker saves you money. But we’re also talking about AI bringing that money back to you. AI is a cost-effective investment, making for the best kind of worker/coworker/business partner you could have by your side. Businesses across industries have pocketed the benefits of using AI.

Companies who embrace AI have seen significant growth over those who have yet to adopt this technology. Leaders in this Accenture survey experienced more than 10% growth in 2019 (81%), compared with 36% of laggards. And just over half (51%) realized more than 20% growth.

Even UPS saves time and money,  thanks to conversational AI, by creating a chatbot that customers perform easy tasks on their own like tracking a package and finding shipping rates. Thanks to this AI, UPS expects to save $200 to $300 million a year.

Plus, AI savings in healthcare is enormous. Harvard Business Review’s data shows that virtual assistants and administrative workflow can add $38B in annual value by 2026. That’s not even counting the cost savings of using AI to assist in surgery, just alleviating labor shortages and adding easier technology integrations.

The future of savings with AI is bright, especially for banking. Banks that invest in AI could increase their revenue by an average of 34% and their employment by 14% by 2022. Next year, AI will generate $2.9 trillion in business value and save 6.2 billion hours of productivity. That’s a lot of cost savings linked to the time savings AI brings.

Inefficiencies are a thorn in the side of any organization. We have known this to be true historically and in today's pandemic economy. The only difference is, now businesses don’t need to tolerate those money sucking, time wasting inefficiencies. When industries such as HR adopt a platform like Humanly.io, it allows recruiters to sidestep monotony and focus their talents and efforts on what they are truly good at: engaging and cultivating relationships. The marriage between AI and industries is gleaming with benefits, payoffs and problem solving. Depending on your industry, there could be more possibilities for you to use AI than you know, for now, and in years to come. Start all your conversation with Humanly, and book time with me.

[Original full article, published on 10/31/2020]